Friday, October 30, 2020

Board Restricts Practice of Medicine in Mississippi

 It was too good to last.  Mississippi's access to higher-qualified out-of-state doctors will end in January.  The Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure decreed yesterday that emergency licenses issued to out-of-state doctors practicing telemedicine in Mississippi will expire January 31.  

Executive Director Dr. Kenneth Cleveland proclaimed yesterday: 


Kingfish note: The dirty little secret of Mississippi medicine is that our doctors are among the highest paid in the country but among the lowest qualified.  The emergency licenses allowed board-certified doctors to practice telemedicine in Mississippi.  Board certification is considered to be more rigorous than just a plain Mississippi medical license.   However, this is Mississippi where we hate competency and love our good ole boyz and womyns. 

The Hospital Association and Mississippi State Medical Association are quite happy about this proclamation.  These are the same guys fighting I65 after they shoved opioids down our throats for years.  It should be noted that while our hospital capacity maxed out during the pandemic, not once did MSMA or MHA suggest easing or abolishing the certificate of need requirements.  They aren't interested about the patients or providing them with the best care.  Like most trade associations, all they care about is lining their pockets and protecting their turf.

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kingfish Note is a perfect explanation

Thank you

Anonymous said...

The medical association and board function as a cartel. Many states have many more "public" members on the board, which is responsible for these policies. Our physician and board leadership serve to limit the number of professionals in the name of "quality." Serves them. Not us.

Anonymous said...

Someone operates a website such as this and they become experts on everything.

Anonymous said...

The medical mafia in Mississippi is as corrupt as the Bidens. Health has nothing to do with it.

Anonymous said...

When you have one of, if not the worst rated medical school in the country, you have to do something to keep patients from leaving the state.

Anonymous said...

I'm voting for 65 just to give a middle finger to these clowns in white coats and the do nothing legislature. Like Joe Biden they had decades to fix the problem and did nothing.

Anonymous said...

I’d be interested in seeing the numbers KF used to claim that Mississippi doctors are among the highest paid and lowest qualified. We certainly have a difficult time attracting quality professionals in any field who are willing to live in this state, but I would be shocked if there is any truth that they are among the highest paid.

Anonymous said...

Consumers want it. It works. And it is more economical. So of course, HELL NO we can't have any of that can we?

Anonymous said...

Those in favor of cost-effective telemedicine may have to circulate a petition for a constitutional amendment on the next ballot. Watch how quickly all of the entrenched "associations" rally together to keep the money train rolling.

Kingfish said...

Haven't seen any politicians, including the Big 3, jumping up and down to change things to improve healthcare in Mississippi, have you? Delbert wants to expand medicaid, i.e. spend money, while Gunn and Reeves haven't really said much about taking any positive action.

No one actually promotes increasing competition or opening up the healthcare market. No one promotes giving Mississippians greater access to higher qualified board-certified doctors.

Now if a superior healthcare system such as Oeschner's tried to buy or open up a hospital here, you would see the cartel rush to stop them much in the same way Henry stopped Albertsons for a time.

Anonymous said...

You mean Ochsner?

Where is this mass of non-board certified docs?

Anonymous said...

1:30 Gotta have a semblance of statewide broadband coverage before routine outpatient telemedicine is a reality for all Mississippians.

Anonymous said...

@12:42 Adjusted for the cost of living, Mississippi is number one in income for physicians:

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/practices/states-where-doctors-make-highest-and-lowest-salaries

Furthermore, the malpractice threat is not as severe here.

And UMC is in the lowest ranked hospital category in America by Medicare. You can look it up yourself (at Medicare Compare) but I will feed it to those who want a link.

Anonymous said...

Tele-med is the way of the future for small costly office visits to get a common sickness Rx. That's the bread and butter to these physicians and why they want to eliminate it.

Anonymous said...

2:48 that same website lists canton and central as higher ranked acute care hospitals than St. Dom and UMMC. If you think the Feds are capable of accurately ranking America’s hospitals, bless your heart.

Anonymous said...

Mississippi is home to the least mobile most diabetic fat gargling sugar licking butt loving no condom using needle sharing whiskey binging cigarette inhaling no toothed people in the northern hemisphere.

But it’s the doctors fault he didn’t study for a comprehensive exam which is duplicative of the 6-8 years of learning he just endured?

Yeah....that’s what it is.....the damn boards!

Y’all stupid.

Anonymous said...

"And UMC is in the lowest ranked hospital category in America by Medicare."

But it's still the best gunshot trauma center in the nation.

I've heard the military secretly sends all their medical staff to UMMC for real experience
before such staff are shipped to a war zone.

Anonymous said...

I got one thing to say Kingfish. YOU sit for the MCAT, get admitted, survive that first year. THEN let's chat about least qualified.

There was a guy in the 1M class of 1989 who scored 86 on the MCAT. In those days there was a theoretical score of 90. Nobody, to my knowledge, anywhere, got it. "Captain 86" as he was called, went to UMC because it was free (for him) and cheaper than dirt (for everybody else). Can you imagine what that guy did to the curve in Gross Anatomy? Seriously.

Do you have any idea in the world what you are talking about??

Do the work. Pass the licensing exams. Then talk about it.

Anonymous said...

I have had good experience with the board certified telemed physicians from Ochsner and from other places as well. Mississippi should be trying to become competitive in the field instead of shutting it down.

Anonymous said...

Paging Dr. Karen!

Anonymous said...

Attn 5:07 you are an excellent example of why the Ole Miss medical facility is ranked where it is. I need to know where you are “practicing” so I never go there !

Anonymous said...


I bet Zundria Crawford passed all requirements for the last class at the Thomas M. Cooley School of Medicine as she did at the last class of the Thomas M. Cooley School of Law.




Anonymous said...

Having had to do telemedicine for 8 months I can honestly say it is the biggest shame and crock of shit I have ever seen. I have no idea what is wrong with someone without testing and evaluating in person. I agree that out of state teledocs need to go.

Anonymous said...

The Fierce Health Care list is an outlier. Adjusts based on salaries for other professions (not saying much when there are not a whole lot of high paying jobs in the backwater state to begin with). The other outlier at Zippia adjusts for COL. MULTIPLE additional sites ranging from Becker's Hospital Review to Weatherly Health Care to Medscape, which surveys 20K physicians annually, shows MS is NOT even in the top 10 states for physician compensation. ZipRecruiter has MS ranked #33.

If you were an out of state physician, what would possibly induce you to move to MS to practice medicine: the wonderful upscale cultural activities and quality public schools in the Metro? Please show some references justifying your denigration of MS physicians as the lowest qualified. Board certification, while desirable, is certainly no guarantee of quality. Many hospitals will not accept staff who are not board certified or board eligible. I saw very few physicians who I would consider unqualified. I practiced in the Jackson Metro area for decades as an out of state trained, board-certified and former academic physician. Found MS to be a wonderful place to practice medicine and found the overall quality of care at the major metro MS hospitals to be comparable to what I had seen in several larger metro areas w teaching hospitals in other states.

Anonymous said...

King - doesn't Ochsners have 6-7 medi-red clinics on the Gulf Coast?

They're coming, as Ed would say.

Anonymous said...

Lowest qualified? One either passes the board exam, or doesn't. There is no ranking within those that pass. I have known some generally high quality physicians that really know their stuff in MS. As good or as better as anywhere else I have been. Are there bad doctors in MS? Of course. Just as there are bad doctors in California or Alabama or wherever you choose to look. Grouping all physicians into the same category is a weak argument.

Highest paid? That sounded like an off the cuff statement to me (I found it hard to believe) so I looked at a couple of specialties.

Family Medicine
AL $194k
MS $180K
US $207k

Pediatrics
AL $191k
MS $177k
US $204k

So, your argument is invalid. We are among the lowest paid it seems. Could healthcare in MS be improved? Sure. Is healthcare sometimes inconvenient? Sure. But blaming it all on rich, good ole boy doctors... I seriously doubt that. And as for the poster voting for I65. I don't know about flipping the finger to the legislature (though I don't have a problem with that)... but I'm voting yes for it simply because this is the 21st century and we need to get rid of 1950's thinking.

As for those that want Ochsners... What do you expect? They buy a hospital or set up a clinic and import providers from some medical mecca to improve care? No, they will hire local providers and raise their fee schedule and suck the money out of the metro area and send it home. Better to get it right locally.

Anonymous said...

Having lived in a major out of state city before moving back to Miss my observation is that the Jackson area MD,s and hospitals are generally as good as most other areas. That is certainly not true in the rural areas of the state. The only negative I have found is that major metro areas have more MD’s and FaceTimes take accept Medicare and most all Medicare supplemental plans because of the competitive market. In most cases the most important person in your health care is you.

Anonymous said...

You know I haven't seen a UMC paid advertisement on this site in a few weeks. Maybe UMC decided this site wasn't worth the money to market or they woke up and realized most people here are bat shit crazy? Either way I bet it was a big revenue loss for KF. Sour apples is my professional diagnosis ;)

Anonymous said...

Thank you for demonstrating the Dunning-Krueger effect for the kids, KF. You epitomize the entire concept.

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile nurse practitioners can jump from specialty to specialty with zero extra training or board certification.

Anonymous said...

"As good or as better as anywhere else I have been."

9:21 - Did you really just say that?

Anonymous said...

@ 10/31 9:51

Please repeat that louder for the folks in the back...and they can get most of their "schooling" done online.


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